We Must Not Look At Goblin Men
by Somewhere In the Clouds
Summary: Once upon a time Yuuki is found and adopted by a human family and grows up ignorant of vampires...until the day she inadvertently bumps into a figure from her past and everything changes. AU.


**A/N:** Sooooooo…I kindamaybesorta rediscovered Vampire Knight on Netflix and kindamaybesorta marathoned the whole series this last week. I can definitely say that watching/reading the series as a twenty-something is a much different experience than watching/reading the series as a teenager. Regardless of its _many_ (and boy are there many) flaws though, I won't even pretend that the teenage girl inside of me doesn't still enjoy the series immensely. On the other hand though, the story and characters (and the shoddy worldbuilding, my god!) could get pretty cringe-worthy at times. And you know what I do when I pick things apart and dwell for hours on how they could be done better? I write fanfiction. So here I am…writing fanfiction…for Vampire Knight of all things…this is, without a doubt, me shamelessly indulging my inner 15-year old. I regret nothing.

So what is this story about you ask? Well, it's a pretty simple 'what if' scenario: What if, instead of Kaname coming to her rescue as an amnesiac child, a _human_ family finds and adopts Yuuki? What if Yuuki grew up as a normal human girl; never knowing about vampires or attending Cross Academy? What if she doesn't meet Kaname until nearly 20 years later? How would a smarter, more resourceful Yuuki interact with Kaname and the world he inhabits? And how would she deal with the later knowledge of her lost past?

**We Must Not Look At Goblin Men**

"Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy"

- _The Goblin Market_, Christina Rossetti

**Chapter I**

"Oh, _fuck me_!"

It was late. _Very_ late. Artemis checked her watch and hissed a few more expletives into the darkness of the library. Kaien Cross may have given her the key to the place and told her that she could 'use it anytime', but she was also pretty positive that that didn't quite translate to 'go ahead and fall asleep in the corner until 1 am' either.

"Why didn't the librarian wake me up?!" She whispered while gathering up her things…and then wondered why she was whispering when there was clearly no one there to hear her. "Next time I'm bringing coffee. _Lots_ of coffee."

_Dammit, I have work in a few hours_, was all she could think as she wrenched one of her research pages from where it lay half sticking out of a book…before swearing rather colorfully as the paper sliced open her finger in retaliation. Sticking her finger in her mouth, she snatched up the offending page and stuffed it rather violently into her bag.

"…Fucking ridiculous," Artemis mumbled (over a mouthful of finger) as she shouldered her things and made for the door.

"How did you get in here?"

Startled, Artemis jumped, swinging around to the face a shadowed figure in the corner but relaxed when she spotted the familiar crisp white uniform of an academy student.

"Oh! God, you freaked me out for a second."

"You're not an academy student." It wasn't a question.

The figure moved from the shadows like a jungle cat, all fluid grace and predatory bearing. He looked like a specter, with his pale skin and hair nearly indistinguishable from the white of his uniform.

"No, just a friend of the headmaster. He lent me the key to the library so I could do my research here." But the boy seemed to barely hear her explanation, instead grinning widely as if they had just shared an inside joke.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

Artemis blinked, confused.

"What?"

"You cut yourself, didn't you?" The grin grew wider.

She felt her finger throb in response and glanced down at it. "Ummm, yeah. It's just a paper-cut though. I'll be fine, even if it hurts like a bitch." The boy stepped closer and Artemis automatically took a step back. Maybe it was her sleep-addled brain talking, but she could've sworn his eyes just glinted in the dark like a cat's.

_Ugh, I really need to go to bed_.

"Listen, it's been nice chatting with you," Artemis declared tiredly, "But it's like way passed my bedtime and I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna go." She turned to the open doorway, only to notice another figure blocking the way.

"Lord Kaname!"

_Lord?_

He certainly didn't _look_ like a lord, _especially_ with that startled look he had on his face. Like he'd seen a _ghost_ or something.

"Sorry to bother you, but I've _really_ gotta get going." She didn't even wait for an answer before she pushed passed the two and headed for the exit.

They let her go.

She never heard _Lord Kaname_ call after her. _Not_ that she would've turned to answer him. It wasn't _Artemis_ he had called out after all.

* * *

><p>"What's up with you?"<p>

Artemis raised her head from the tabletop and gave her brother a pained look. "Was up all night researching for my thesis."

"You're young. You'll survive," Dietrich supplied unsympathetically.

She snorted. "Oh please, you're barely a year older than I am."

"And in a year's time you too shall know the woes of adulthood: Bad backs, aching joints, the inability to sleep in past 7 am…"

"Those sound like the woes of an 80-year old, not a 23-year old."

"80…23…either way the struggle is real."

"Hey losers, want anything before I lock up the liquor?" Aveline called from across the bar.

"One of those fruity things would be nice."

Artemis's sister looked at her with what could only be described as disappointment. "Of all the free booze here, you choose a _girly drink_?"

"Oh fuck you. Not all of us are alcoholics."

"Knowing the difference between whiskey and wine doesn't make me an alcoholic Arty."

Dietrich groaned. "_Please_, girls, you're both pretty. Now can we just bust out the tequila so I can get shit-faced? I refuse to walk home sober."

And so an hour later, with the bar locked up tight and all three siblings thoroughly buzzed (or in Dietrich's case, completely drunk) they made their respective journeys home, which in Artemis's case meant ambling her way down to the ancient apartment building at the end of the street. It was _so_ old in fact, that she was fairly sure the building had been around longer than the current governmental regime. Like many of the buildings in town it was built out of stone, but unlike many of _those_ buildings it had virtually no proper insulation making it deplorably cold in the winter and insufferably stuffy in the summer. It certainly explained why she could afford the rent every month. By the time she had ensconced herself safely inside, the clock on her kitchen wall read 3 am.

Artemis grimaced.

She'd now been up for nearly 24 hours. Unable to spare a thought towards changing, she fell into bed fully-clothed and was soon dead to the world.

* * *

><p>Between work and school, it was nearly a week before Artemis could spare the time to see Kaien Cross again. So it was a relief when Saturday rolled around and she found herself making the familiar trek through town and up the long winding steps to Cross Academy. It was always a strange experience for her to walk through the grounds of the boarding school, as if she were traversing some new and exotic land. The school, after all, was primarily populated by children of the rich and powerful, a category Artemis could have only dreamed on falling into. Not to say that her own parents had been poor, but they certainly weren't the CEOs of a pharmaceutical empire either. Sending their three children off to a institution like this would've been impossible. The architecture of the place alone looked like it had cost a fortune. Once, she had asked Kaien where the funding <em>just<em> for the school's _construction_ had come from and the only answer she had received was a mischievous smile and a shrug.

As she marched her way across campus, a gaggle of teenaged girls passed her and cast strange looks her way. She smiled back at them, unconcerned. Amongst the black-clad students she was sure she stuck out like a poppy in a field of white.

"Artemis, hello my dear!" Kaien greeted her warmly as she entered his office.

Artemis plopped into the chair facing his desk. "Sorry I haven't visited. There's been a ton of tourists coming into town all week due to that festival, so it's been crazy busy at work."

"Oh that's quite alright. I understand how it goes." He waved away her concerns with his usual flippant demeanor but she was surprised to notice his smile didn't quite have the same blinding force it usually did. He seemed almost…distracted. "Tell me Artemis, you didn't happen to stay in the library _late_ earlier this week, did you?"

_Dammit, someone told him. Probably one of those kids_.

"Yeah, actually. I mean I didn't _mean_ to," she tried to explain casually and shrugged. "But I sorta fell asleep and woke up when the place had closed."

The look Kaien gave her was so intense she felt the rest of her excuse shrivel up uselessly on her tongue. "No one _bothered_ you did they?"

"Just some kid. I think he was one of your…_Night Class_ students? Is that what they're called?"

Kaien looked as if he'd sucked on a lemon.

"Well, next time you use the library I'd prefer if you did so during the day. I'd prefer you not having to walk home in the middle of the night."

"Ummm, yeah. Sure." Artemis couldn't quite put her finger on why, but she was certain her friend had just lied to her. He knew for a _fact_ that she walked home by herself _every_ night and he had never had a problem her doing so _then_. Where did this sudden concern over her well-being come from? "I mean, I suppose I wouldn't want to bother those Night Class kids."

"Oh I wouldn't say you would be bothering us."

"Kaname. You're here early."

Artemis twisted in her seat to greet their visitor only to feel a sudden surge of déjà vu.

The man (because he was most _certainly_ a _man_) strode into the office purposefully and stopped beside her armchair. "Yes, I came to discuss a few things with you but I see you are already preoccupied." He glanced down at her with a smile that spoke of a thousand things, none of which Artemis could decipher.

"…Have we met?" She vaguely recalled seeing him in the library though it had been dark then so maybe…

"Yes," The man ('_Kaname_' she had to remind herself) stared down at her and Artemis couldn't help but notice how long his eyelashes were. _Like a woman's_. "We _have_."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** So, a few things, the title for this story comes from the poem "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti. It has a ton of overtly sexual themes and considering that vampires _themselves_ are basically the walking personifications of sex, I thought it fit rather well.

Secondly, 'Artemis' is Yuuki. Obviously in canon Kaien Cross named her Yuuki because he already knew what her real name was. Here though, it would make very little sense since the family who adopted her had no idea who she was beforehand. Still, I wanted to give her a name that had _something_ to do with canon so I went with Artemis (after her scythe obviously). Her adoptive family's surname (and thus her's) is Redwyne. Get it? Red…wine…you know, like _blood_? But seriously I can't take too much credit for that since I straight up stole it from my World of Ice and Fire book because I thought it was clever. _Super_ fucking obvious, but clever.

Speaking of her adoptive family, Dietrich and Aveline are her older (adoptive) siblings. They have European names because I situated Cross Academy and its surrounding town on the eastern coast of what was once Spain. In canon I don't believe we're ever told what that town is actually _called_. I don't even think we know what the _country_ they're in is called either. So this is me, trying to elaborate upon what little we got in canon. Ms. Hino's world building was rather shaky at best, and downright _confusing_ at worst, so I'm trying my best to patch things up (or just straight up make shit up when I have to).

And on one last note…I have no idea where this is going. Okay, that's a lie. I have a broad idea of where it's going, but this fic is definitely me plotting out a few key points and then running with it. So if you've got any ideas you'd like me to incorporate, by all means, let me know.


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